Chapter Fourteen

Madelyn

The next evening, Madelyn was sitting on the couch in her living room with her feet tucked up beneath her while having a glass of wine with Melanie. She had asked Melanie to come by because she felt that it was finally time for her to tell her friend about Xavier.

This was not going to be an easy conversation to have, and Madelyn had made herself sick thinking about it all day. It was going to be hard to get her to understand when she couldn’t tell her that Xavier was a shifter or that he believed that the two of them were fated to be together. However, she had kept things from Melanie for long enough. Besides, if she and Xavier were going to attempt to be a normal couple, even though the two of them were anything but, she needed to be able to go out with him in public. So, she owed it to Melanie to give her a heads-up.

“Okay, I say this with all the love in my heart,” Melanie commented, setting her wine down on the coffee table. “But you look like you are either about to throw up or pass out. What’s going on? Is everything okay?”

Madelyn gave her friend a weak attempt at a smile. “Yeah, I’m okay. I just…” She swallowed hard as she leaned over and set her own glass down. “There’s something that I need to talk to you about, and it’s probably going to be hard for you to understand.”

“Okay,” Melanie drawled out the word. “Because that’s not ominous or anything.”

“I know,” she agreed with a small nod. “I just don’t know how to say it. It’s not going to be an easy conversation.”

“Now you are just freaking me out. Spit it out already.”

Madelyn chewed on the inside of her cheek briefly. “Alright. Well, I… I met someone. A guy, I mean. He’s… he’s hot as hell, over-protective, likes to take control, and is all sorts of wrong for me. But the connection between us is really freaking strong and difficult to ignore. So, we, uh, we decided to see where it goes.”

Melanie studied her for a moment, a look of pure confusion on her face. “Alright. While I’m not fond of the idea of you dating someone that you claim is ‘all sorts of wrong for you’, I am glad that you are getting back out there again. I was worried there for a bit after David. But, I still don’t see what the big deal is. Why did you assume that would be difficult for me to understand?”

“His name is Xavier, Mel,” Madelyn added quickly, knowing she needed to get it out before she chickened out.

It was almost comical how Madelyn could pinpoint the exact moment that the dots connected together in Melanie’s brain. Her eyes widened, and her face turned a shade of pink that Madelyn had never seen before. Whether it was surprise or anger, she didn’t know.

“Xavier,” Melanie said slowly. “As in…”

“As in my… my stalker,” she finished for her.

Melanie was on her feet so fast that Madelyn flinched in response. That was nothing compared to the anger in Melanie’s voice as she completely went off on her.

“Are you out of your fucking mind?” she exclaimed loudly. “What the hell are you thinking? Or are you even thinking at all?”

“Melanie, I?—”

“No, just stop. I don’t want to hear how you are fucking rationalizing this shit in your head. He’s your fucking stalker, Madelyn. He put David in the hospital just for talking to you! He’s a monster. Who knows what else that guy has done?” Melanie paced in front of the coffee table, the vein in her temple throbbing. Madelyn had known that she wasn’t going to take the news very well, but she didn’t expect her to blow up like this. “I mean, the guy should be in prison! And there was a time when you agreed with me on that!”

“That was before I knew him, Mel,” she tried to explain, though her voice was soft. “He’s really not that bad of a guy, and I?—”

“Oh, you think you know him now? You think you know everything there is to know about him? About his past, his likes, his dislikes, how many people he’s killed?”

Madelyn sighed heavily. “No, I don’t know everything about him, but I know enough. Look, he may have gone about this the wrong way, but I wasn’t lying about the connection that?—”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Madelyn, there is no fucking connection!” Melanie screamed at her. “There can’t be. And you are delusional if you think there is.”

Melanie’s words felt like a punch to the gut. She never expected to hear something like that from someone she considered to be her best friend. Especially someone she had confided in about her past.

This time though, Madelyn knew she wasn’t delusional. She knew what she felt, and she was fairly confident in her decision to let it play out. She was a bit ashamed to admit it, but she wanted to see if there was anything to the whole fated mate thing. It sounded way too good to be true, but she had thought shifters were fictional too. Her being his fated mate would explain why she was so drawn to a guy like him.

“Are you going to let me explain things, or are you just going to keep freaking out on me?” she asked pointedly.

Melanie spun on her. “Explain what, exactly? This guy is going to end up killing you, you know, and then I am going to be the one who has to solve your murder. But hey, at least, it will be an easy close.”

“Come on, Melanie,” Madelyn tried again.

Melanie laughed and shook her head. “Nope. I’m not doing it.”

Madelyn jumped to her feet as Melanie slid on her shoes and stormed toward the door. She snatched her jacket off the hook and yanked it on.

“Mel, wait. Please,” Madelyn pleaded.

“No, Madelyn. I’m done. I can’t do this.” She turned to Madelyn as she entered the foyer. “I am not going to stand by and watch you get yourself killed. I can’t. And I suggest you go and get your head checked out because there is something seriously fucking wrong with you.”

Madelyn’s heart plummeted into the pit of her stomach as she watched Melanie leave. Her best friend, who had sworn that nothing she told her would change things between them only days before, had essentially just ended their friendship. She had done so without letting Madelyn try to explain how she felt or why she had made the decision to give Xavier a chance. It had been all too easy for Melanie to turn her back on her. While she had expected some resistance, expected her to be angry and upset, and maybe even try to talk her out of it, she never once thought that Melanie would do this.

Madelyn closed her eyes, a few tears rolling down her cheeks as she turned and reluctantly set the alarm.

“You didn’t tell her the truth,” the now familiar voice stated from behind her. “About what I am or what you are to me.”

Madelyn turned to see Xavier leaning against the door frame leading into the kitchen, a full duffel bag on his shoulder. She wasn’t surprised he was there as he seemed to like to randomly appear wherever she was. In fact, she was kind of grateful for that now as it made her feel less alone.

“No, I didn’t,” she replied, going back into the living room to grab the glasses and the wine bottle to take them back into the kitchen.

Xavier followed, dropping his bag by the chair. “Why?”

“It’s not my secret to tell,” she said honestly, tears still stinging the backs of her eyes. “Besides, you said no one is supposed to know. I didn’t want to break some kind of sacred shifter rule.”

Massive arms wrapped around her waist as he pressed a kiss to the curve of her neck, right over the bite mark he had left on her. “Yeah, well, I seem to be breaking all kinds of rules for you, little dove. What’s one more to add to the list?”

Madelyn’s fingers gripped the edge of the sink as she shook her head. “She wouldn’t have believed me anyway, Xavier. I wouldn’t have either if I were in her shoes. The only reason I do believe it is because I saw it with my own eyes.”

“I can always show her if you like.”

She turned in his arms so that she could look into his beautiful eyes. “I appreciate that, but I don’t think you could get anywhere near her without her arresting you.” She rested her forehead against his chest, a few more tears escaping. “I knew she was going to be upset about this, but I didn’t think she would actually cut me off. I thought we were closer than that.”

“I’m sorry,” he told her.

She scoffed a laugh. “No, you’re not. You knew she was a cop; you had to know something like this would happen. You have to know how cops feel about stalking, and yet you pursued me that way anyway.”

Xavier lifted her chin with his fingers. “You misunderstand me, Madelyn. You’re right to assume that I’m not sorry I pursued you or that I marked you as mine. I’m not even sorry about Melanie as she clearly wasn’t as good a friend as you believed her to be. However, I am sorry that you are going through this and that you lost someone you care about. I know how much she meant to you.”

Madelyn pressed her lips together, a fresh wave of emotion washing over her. “I knew the risks when I agreed to this.”

This was getting to be too much, and she needed to change the subject. Otherwise, she would completely fall apart and would end up spending the rest of the night bawling her eyes out. She didn’t have the mental capacity for all that at the moment. She also didn’t want to pass up the opportunity to find out more about the mystery that was Xavier. Melanie was right about one thing: She didn’t know nearly enough about him.

Stepping out of his arms, Madelyn moved back toward the living room where the two of them took a seat on the couch. “What’s with the bag?” she asked him curiously. “You going somewhere?”

Jaw clenching, Xavier shook his head. “No. I’m going to be staying here with you for a while.”

She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Okay, I know I agreed to give this a shot, but that doesn’t mean you can just move in here, Xavier.”

He turned his body on the couch to face her, cocking an eyebrow. “First of all, I told you, if we do this, we are doing this. You already bear my mark; there’s no taking it back. It’s permanent, and so is this. Secondly, that’s not why I’m staying here.”

“Then why are you?” While she had plenty of things to say about him automatically assuming that they were permanent, as well as his marking her the way he had without permission, she felt that figuring out why he was insisting on staying with her was more important.

“Remember Colby?”

She nodded. “As if I could forget. You think he’s going to come after me?”

“There’s a good chance, and it won’t be just him either. Not anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

Xavier ran his fingers through his hair. “After I revealed the fact that I was a shifter to him, he went back and told the rest of the family.”

“The Cortez family?” she asked.

He nodded curtly. “The only people who knew what I was were Rodrigo and Isabelle. I guess a lot of the guys got pissed when Colby told them. They rebelled against Rodrigo and left to hunt me alongside Colby. Rodrigo is pissed and labeled them as traitors. So now, war is on its way to Cedarwood.”

Madelyn didn’t like the sound of that at all. There was a good chance that a lot of innocent people could end up getting hurt just because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Collateral damage.

“But what does that have to do with me?”

Reaching forward, Xavier cupped the side of her neck. “Because you are my mate, hurting you would weaken me. It would make it easier for them to kill me. The bond between us affects me more than it does you. If anything happens to you, it will destroy me.”

Madelyn couldn’t help but wonder if that was true. If she was so important to Xavier that, if anything happened to her, it would physically affect him. She had never been important to someone before, and the thought caused her heart to squeeze in her chest.

“But if they didn’t know about shifters, how would they know that?”

“They wouldn’t, not for sure,” he responded. “But I already revealed my hand to Colby that day he threatened you. It wouldn’t be hard for him to figure out, and I’m not taking any chances. Not with you.”

Madelyn pulled her bottom lip in between her teeth as she wrung her hands in her lap. It looked as though she was going to have a new roommate.